Clear-Cut Scenes

By Pam Hillman

Occasionally, I speak to book clubs, ladies’ retreats, and writers’ meetings, and at these events, I always leave time for Q&A. The question most often asked is where do I get my ideas. This question is quickly followed by a similar query asking how I transfer that seedling of an idea to the computer screen, then ultimately to book form.

I could just say that it happens. I type and rearrange. I type some more, then I hit delete. I move a sentence here, a paragraph there. I tweak a whole scene. Then—

But that’s not really very helpful, is it? Maybe if I explained it this way—

In The Crossing at Cypress Creek, Caleb O’Shea and his brothers run a logging operation in the backwoods fifteen to twenty miles north of Natchez, MS. They must figure out the lay of the land, build roads along winding ridges in order to snake the logs out of the wilderness. For their business to succeed, they must find the fastest, safest, and cheapest route to transport the logs to the sawmill in Natchez. They keep their axes honed and their saw blades oiled and sharp, their draft animals well-fed and their men content.

But all that planning and plotting isn’t going to do them a bit of good if they roll over and pull the cover over their heads when the breakfast gong sounds. It’s up and at ‘em long before dawn, with the O’Shea brothers and their crews working together clearing the path set before them.

It’s the same with a writer. We clear the path set before us, felling one word at a time. Once the trees are cut and hauled away, we purge the scenes of unwanted brush and unsightly stumps. Oftentimes, we plant more words on the page as we go, creating a new landscape that’s pleasing to the eye.

When all is said and done, we have a series of clear-cut scenes laid out before us. Scenes that stretch along the ridges in a neat and orderly line to a place called The End.

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Award-winning author Pam Hillman writes inspirational fiction set in the turbulent times of the American West and Gilded Age. Her novel Claiming Mariah won Romance Writers of America’s prestigious Golden Heart award. She lives in Mississippi with her husband and family. Visit her website at www.pamhillman.com.

Stainless Steel Classics

By Pam Hillman

Quick, run to your kitchen and look at your smooth, shiny sink. Or maybe even the vent hood over your stove, possibly even your refrigerator. Pull out that gleaming pot you inherited from your grandmother that you still make spaghetti in two or three times a week.

Take a look at your silverware. Except—just to let you in on a secret—I seriously doubt it’s real silver, unless it’s been in your family for generations. And who has time to polish silver anyway? How long have you had that fork? Ten years? Twenty-five? Thirty? More?

Chances are you’re looking at 304 stainless steel. Doesn’t rust and it’s made to last forever. Just take a piece of steel wool to it every so often, add a little elbow grease, and it’ll be good as new.

I know a bit about stainless steel. I spent the last sixteen years purchasing precious metals: stainless steel, copper, and brass goods. All these metals have their specific uses, but stainless steel is in a class by itself. What makes 304 stainless steel so special? Nickel.

Over half of the nickel mined worldwide is used to produce stainless steel, and it’s believed that Earth’s inner core is made up of an iron-nickel mixture. Nickel is the commodity that keeps 304 stainless steel from rusting. And it’s not called stainless for nothing. If the mix (the metal composition) meets production specs, you’ve got a piece of pristine stainless that will last a lifetime, and beyond.

So it is with the work of a writer’s pen. A writer mines that precious commodity of imagination stored deep inside, mixes it with her thoughts, feelings, passions, and craft to create stories that sparkle and shine. And when she gets the mix just right, her writing will rival that of the most elegant stainless flatware in the world.

And readers will embrace the steel in her work. They’ll admire the enduring quality of her well-crafted stories and sigh at the polished perfection of her prose. They’ll tuck away her stories to read another day, unveil them to share with their closest friends. Why? Because the author dug to the core and filled her stories with that elusive commodity that can only be found deep inside where dreams and imagination live.

So dig deep. Imagination becomes stories. Stories become books. But 304 stainless steel books become classics.

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Pam Hillman is a 304 stainless steel magnolia born and raised on a dairy farm in Mississippi. She spent her teenage years perched on the seat of a tractor raking hay. In those days, her daddy couldn’t afford two cab tractors with air conditioning and a radio, so Pam drove the Allis Chalmers 110. Even when her daddy asked her if she wanted to bale hay, she told him she didn’t mind raking. Raking hay doesn’t take much thought so Pam spent her time working on her tan and making up stories in her head. Now, that’s the kind of life every girl should dream of! Cs her second novel. www.pamhillman.com